Talk Details

Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - 4:15pm

Volker Gaibler:

"A link between hypervelocity stars and AGN activity in the Milky Way?"

Abstract. Hypervelocity stars in the Milky Way Galaxy show velocities directed outward from the centre of the galaxy of 300 to 1000 km/s. However, previous explanations as ejection from binaries or binary encounters with the central black hole seem to be unable to explain the observed population. We propose a scenario where these stars were formed due to past AGN jet activity of the Galactic Centre (Silk et al. 2012). The scenario may also provide an explanation for the metallicity abundance floor observed for the intergalactic medium.